xAI lost $6.4B from operations on $3.2B in revenue in 2025, according to SpaceX's IPO filing released this week. The loss more than quadrupled from $1.56B in 2024, and the gap between what xAI earns and what it spends is widening despite revenue growth. Musk merged xAI with SpaceX in February 2026 before announcing plans to take the combined company public later this year at a potential $1.75T valuation.
AI segment capital expenditures climbed from $12.7B in 2025 to $7.7B in Q1 2026 alone. That translates to an annualized capex run rate of roughly $30.8B, more than doubling year-over-year. The spending is tied to infrastructure expansion: xAI's Colossus and Colossus II data centers collectively provide about 1 gigawatt of compute power and came online in 122 days and 91 days, respectively.
Revenue in 2025 came primarily from AI solutions and infrastructure, which generated $465M. That figure includes $365M in X and Grok subscription revenue and $88M in data licensing. Advertising contributed an additional $116M. Grok AI features had 117M monthly active users as of March 2026, out of 550M total MAUs across Grok and X combined. Roughly one-fifth of the combined ecosystem is actively using Grok AI features.
Key facts
- 01xAI lost $6.4B from operations on $3.2B in revenue in 2025, more than doubling its loss from $1.56B in 2024.
- 02AI segment capital expenditures hit $7.7B in Q1 2026 alone, an annualized run rate of $30.8B.
- 03Grok AI features had 117M monthly active users as of March 2026, roughly one-fifth of the 550M total MAUs across Grok and X combined.
- 04SpaceX plans to scale Grok to multiple trillions of parameters and begin deploying orbital AI compute satellites as early as 2028.
- 05SpaceX's IPO could value the combined entity at $1.75T, making it one of the largest public offerings in history.
SpaceX's filing outlines plans to scale Grok to multiple trillions of parameters, a figure the company describes as a step change in reasoning depth and overall intelligence. That ambition will require sustained investment in compute. The filing's use-of-proceeds section mentions expansion of AI compute infrastructure, and SpaceX claims vertical integration across the AI stack allows it to train and iterate frontier models at lower cost and higher velocity.
The filing also sets the first concrete timeline for Musk's orbital data center vision. SpaceX intends to begin deploying AI compute satellites as early as 2028, a move it positions as a cheaper alternative to terrestrial data centers. The strategy hinges on control of the physical stack, from chips to orbit.
“The future of AI will be determined by control of the physical stack.”— Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and xAI
Anthropic, which is also eyeing a 2026 IPO, reportedly expects a 130% revenue jump to $10.9B in Q2 and its first operating profit. OpenAI is targeting a September IPO with Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. Both competitors are moving toward profitability while xAI is still burning capital at a rate that dwarfs its revenue.
xAI's user growth remains modest relative to its investment scale. Only 117M of the 550M total MAUs are actively using Grok AI features, suggesting room for both adoption gains and product-market fit refinement. The filing does not break out Grok's standalone economics.
The $6.4B operating loss and the $30.8B annualized capex run rate frame xAI as a bet on scale and vertical integration, not near-term profitability. If Musk can execute on the orbital compute timeline and the trillion-parameter model, the infrastructure advantage could pay off. If not, the burn rate is unsustainable without continued capital infusions or a sharp pivot toward monetization.
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